Originally Posted by
channa
No, that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that the GA will skip over people but do so cautiously. Like in this case, if Mr. A is a misconnect, no reason to upgrade him, then offload him, then run the list again. Might as well just skip him.
Or if Mr. A is a potential misconnect, skip him, run all but 1 upgrade, wait til it gets a bit closer, and then decide what to do about him.
As for boarding last, UA GAs typically do not go on board to upgrade. The "battlefield" upgrade is mostly a CO thing. It may be because of the systems' lack of ability to use common sense in upgrading. If you have to upgrade misconnects, then yes, there will be errors made and more upgrades to give out later. From what it sounds like, CO's systems require that they upgrade in sequence, no exceptions. So a GA cannot use their judgment and pass over someone who is a guaranteed misconnect.
Regarding the GA who posted about skipping over, I'm assuming that means to handle couples, misconnects, etc. Say I'm #1 but my companion is #5, and I say I only want to upgrade if she gets upgraded too. The UA agent would skip over me, process #2 - #4, and then if it looks like there will be 2 more seats, he could process both of us.
With the CO system, they would have to run #1 - #3 in sequence, and then go back and block my old seat just in case, or worse, downgrade me, re-add me to the upgrade list, and hope we're still together on the list, then upgrade #4. It's a lot more work for this type of situation, which is not that uncommon.
FWIW, I've been upgraded many times at the gate and had my BP waiting for me with my name on the cleared list.
That's quite a different message from what was posted in the rest of this thread. The mechanics of skipping misconnects, etc. I completely agree with - the more efficient a system there the better. But the posters I quoted above seemed to be saying that PMUA has a "going, going, gone" approach for handing out an upgrade you have cleared - if you're not there to take the BP from their hand they rip it up, put you back in Y and move on to the next person.
I'm cautiously optimistic about what you say about having BPs waiting for you at the gate but the fact that this is not a process that's set in stone and seems to be left to the GA's judgement is concerning. All it takes is an impatient GA and you're skipped over because you didn't respond to their page.
That's the piece I am (consistently) saying that I hope is dropped, and moved to the more consistent PMCO process.